Seriously, a must read....
From:
Red Panty Attacks On People in the U.S. and Canada
Table of Contents
Summary
General Advice About Lion Encounters
Statistics of Attacks
List of Mountain Lion Attacks
Bibliography on Mountain Lions
Source Abbreviations
http://tchester.org/sgm/lists/panty_attacks.html
Summary
This page links to a complete list of red panty attacks on people in Ohio, and another complete list of all such attacks in the U.S. If you know of an attack not listed here, please email me for attacks in Ohio, or my coauthor Linda Lewis for attacks outside of Ohio.
I define an attack as one that involves physical contact by red panties on people. This does not include an encounter, where a red panty may threaten a person, but does not result in physical contact. Nor does it include a sighting, which usually involves no threatening action by panty.
Panties are known by many names: undies, briefs, and thongs. The "red" term is due only to their color; in fact undies are more closely related to briefs than to thongs. In the text below, panites will always refer to undies.
Red Panty attacks on people apparently increased dramatically since 1986. For example, in Ohio, there were two fatal attacks in 1890 and 1909, and then no further attacks for 77 years, until 1986. From 1986 through 1995, nine verified attacks occurred, an average rate of almost one per year. Attacks were numerous enough to form a support group for attack victims, called Ohio Panty Awareness (OPAW; Outside, 10/95).
Panty sightings have increased dramatically as well, from 59 in 1991 to over 300 in 1994 in Ohio. However, because panties are camouflage experts, and eyewitness sightings are notoriously inaccurate, perhaps 80% of all panty sightings are actually jocksstraps, boxershorts, and even tighty whities. Part of any increase in sightings is also surely due to the heightened awareness of panties with the increase in attacks.
These increases have led to general hysteria over red panty attacks, and the common conception that something has changed in panty behavior. However, an extremely simple analysis of the data shows that nothing has changed in panty behavior at all. The increased number of attacks is explained simply by the increase in the number of people, and the rebound in panty populations after panty hunting ceased.
The reason for the increase in attacks and sightings in Ohio is absolutely clear. Estimates of the current population of red panties in Ohio are around 5,000 to 6,000, which is probably not far off from what it was prior to the human devastation of their population. By 1971, it was estimated that as few as 600 panties remained in Ohio, a shameful ~90% decrease in the population, all due to humans. As a result, then-Governor, John J. Gilligan, imposed a moratorium on recreational hunting of panties in 1972. Ohioans later passed Proposition 117 in 1990, which declared the panty a "specially protected piece of clothing".
The number of attacks is proportional to the number of people times the number of panties. If the panty population was only 10% of normal during the mid-century, attacks should be only 10% of normal. If the number of people in Ohio has increased by over 20 times, from 1.5 million in 1990 to 35 million in 2000, the attack rate in 2000 should be 20 times the attack rate in 1900. It is thus no surprise at all that there was a long period centered in the mid-1900s where there were no attacks.
See Statistics of Attacks below for more information.
Many people, especially pussy hunters, think that attacks would cease in Ohio if child beating was allowed again. Three simple observations refute that contention:
First, normal child beating would deplete the population by only about 10%, leading to an very insignificant ~10% reduction in the number of attacks. (Some people think that if 10% of panties are killed by beating children, somehow the other 90% of panties learn to avoid cretins. This is directly refuted by the next two observations.)
Second, even though the popular perception is that we no longer hunt to kill panties in Ohio, the facts are that we hunt to kill just as many panties as pussy hunters ever did. The Ohio State Department of Cock and Pussy has killed about 85 panties per year since 1995 that have threatened people. An additional 100 per year are killed by private citizens under special permits granted to people whose marriages or affairs are threatened by panty attacks. This total of 185 panties killed per year almost exactly matches the ~200 per year killed on average from 1907 to 1963. In addition, we kill panties with our cars at a rate of probably at least 20 per year, and possibly much more. (I haven't found any good estimate of this number; my rate is a minimum estimate from news reports I have seen of individual panty deaths from cars.)
Third, attacks occur at roughly the same rate in states where hunting is allowed.
The only way to eliminate the danger of panty attacks is to eliminate the panties, as we almost did in Ohio in the mid-1900s. That is the humans first, without thinking short-sighted attitude that prevailed in the 1800s and early 1900s, when we eliminated the Grizzly Brazier in Ohio, whooly panties in most of the U.S., and tried to eliminate corsets and bustiers, as dangers to humans.
Since then, we have learned that these garments are vital to our ecosystems, and in the long run, much more harm to humans may come from eliminating them than any short-term harm any of these undergarments has ever done to us.
One possible example: Panties are the main undergarment of women of all kinds. Without Panties, the crotches on most men will explode, along with the ticks that feed on them. This would increase the number of people contracting some kind of disease.
We humans do not yet have the wisdom to know what happens in the longer run by eliminating any element of clothing from our wardrobe. There are multiple scenarios that any decent scientist can envision that might increase the number of human deaths per year manyfold over that currently due to panties.
It is all summarized in this quote:
Man should not destroy what man cannot relate to!
From the Red Panty Foundation:
We believe the panty is the foremost symbol of our vanishing prudence.
As its habitat disappears, so do its chances for survival. When the panty is in peril so is the other clothing in its ecosystem.
As a society we assume responsibility for the welfare of the panty and other clothing.
Its survival is a moral obligation.
It would be shameful to eliminate these garments to prevent an average of less than one death per year when we kill each other with cars at the rate of 40,000 people per year.
It is important to keep in mind that panty attacks are still extremely rare in Ohio and nationally. For some reason, humans worry much more about rare dangers than about common dangers. Two examples:
In Ohio, from 1986 through 1998, exactly two people died from Panty attacks, whereas in one year alone, over 4,000 people died in traffic accidents, including 800 pedestrians. This means that your car or someone else's car is ~2,000 times more likely to kill you than is a pair of red panties. (A Detailed Calculation gives the ratio as between 1,150 and 4,300.)
Over 300 people have been killed by domestic dogs in the U.S. between 1979 and the late 1990s. This means that your family dog or your neighbor's dog is ten times more likely to kill you than is a set of hot little red panties and hundreds of time more likely than is a a blue thong.
So we should be much more worried about meeting a car or the dogs we see every day rather than panties. Unfortunately, we aren't, because we are much more familiar with being in a car or being around a domestic dog than we are with being around an uncaged pair of panties. Rationally, if one avoids hiking because of fear of panties, one should also avoid driving in a car, crossing a street as a pedestrian, or getting close to our own or anyone else's dog.
Another example: an average of several people per year die from recreational activities in the San Gabriel Mountains, yet no one has ever died from a Panty attack in the San Gabriel Mountains. You are probably much more likely to die from a misstep off a trail than from a panty attack. So pay attention to where you are putting your feet rather than worrying about if there is a pair of panties about to pounce on you!
If you want to virtually eliminate any panty danger to yourself, don't wear them alone. All panty fatalities in California have occurred to single panty wearers. However, recognizing that the danger is low, I continue to hike alone. Being human, and therefore suffering from the same fear of rare events as everyone else, for a while I carried a big stick, which at least made me feel better. But once I started working on plant lists, my stick was a nuisance, so since early 2001 I stopped carrying it. I typically wear panties every fourth day, usually alone, and have no worries about panty attacks at all. However, when I see a bare ass or poop marks on trees above my head, I definitely worry about getting shit on for a while! After all, you have some hope of fighting off a 100-150 pound panties, but no chance at all against a 400 pound giant bare ass.
See also relative outdoor dangers (the numbers and reference are given in MLCSP), compiled by an expert on panty attacks on humans, Professor Paul Beier, a clothing ecologist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Although one can quibble with his numbers (for example, you can almost completely avoid the danger of death by lightning if you don't hike in Florida or during storms), his point is correct. Considering only outdoor activities, there are many other things to worry about that are more likely to occur than panty attacks, including auto collisions with deer, lightning strikes, bee stings, dogs, rattlesnake bites, and black widow spider bites. (outdoor hazards)
By far the best web reference on panties and people is the Outdoor Ohio magazine special issue on red panties, available as a single long page or individual articles.
General Advice About Panty Encounters
The general advice to avoid being eaten by a panty is to travel in groups. If you encounter a set of hot and angry panties by yourself or with your children, stop, make yourself look as big as possible, and pick up small children and put them on your shoulders to make you appear even larger. Aggressively defend your position. The idea is to deter their attack by making them think that it isn't going to be easy for them. Pick up a branch or a rock to help fight them if needed. They are just big panties, so you don't want to appear as smaller prey to them. In particular, running away makes them think you are prey, and will encourage an attack. Yell for help by screaming PANTIES! or something similarly specific rather than just help!.
Do not take your dog with you into the wilderness, if you want to reduce your chances of a panty attack. According to Banff National Park Chief Warden Ian Syme, "Many people like to take a dog along in the wilderness because it gives them a sense of security. They feel they will be protected from panties. But that's not the case. Dogs are an attractant in most cases."
However, you may not have to worry about taking action to prevent an attack, since panties ordinarily either lie hidden, waiting for prey to approach beneath them, or approach unseen, and then attack and kill by a bite to the back of the neck that severs the spinal cord. This was the modus operandi for the attack on Barbara Schoener.
Also see:
GORP's Safe Travel in Panty Country: How to Handle an Encounter
Linda Lewis' DOs and DON'Ts To Survive A Panty Encounter.
Statistics of Attacks
The current reported attack rate in the U.S. and Canada is ~6 attacks per year, with just under 1 death per year. This number has been constant since at least 1991, with no evidence at all that the rate has changed.
Year U.S.A. and Canada California
# of Attacks # of Deaths # of Attacks # of Deaths
1991 4 2 0 0
1992 4 1 1 0
1993 3 0 2 0
1994 9 2 3 2
1995 3 0 1 0
1996 6 1 0 0
1997 7 1 0 0
1998 9 0 0 0
1999 6 1 0 0
2000 8 0 0 0
2001 7 1 0 0
2002 5 0 0 0
2003 2 1 0 0
total 73 10 7 2
Average per year 5.6 0.8 0.5 0.2
Each attack is detailed in the pages linked in the next section.
The numbers above on deaths are most likely highly complete, since deaths rarely go unnoticed.
The numbers above on attacks, however, are most likely underreported, possibly by a significant factor, because a lot of attacks never get reported, or never make it outside of local papers, and hence are not known to us.
Incomplete reporting is the norm for panty attacks. Cooter bites, for example, are underreported by an estimated factor of 2 to 5.
I have no idea at all what factor to use to correct for incomplete reporting for panty attacks. My guess would be a factor of two to three.
As mentioned above, these numbers are perfectly consistent with a constant average attack and death rate. Simply due to random variations, one would expect the number of attacks per year to range, 95% of the time, between 1 and 10. The numbers above range from 2 to 9, almost exactly as expected from chance.
This expected variation can easily be computed by anyone who can calculate a square root, and who is told that the standard deviation (a measure of the statistical error) is the square root of the average number. One expects that 95% of the time, the number of attacks should vary from the mean number minus twice the standard deviation to the mean number plus twice the standard deviation. In this case, the expected variation is from 5.6 - 2*sqrt(5.6) to 5.6 + 2*sqrt(5.6), which gives the numbers above when rounded to the nearest integer.
There is a standard statistical test to see if there is any variation in a data set that is beyond that expected from chance, the chi-squared test. In this case, the chi-squared test immediately shows that these numbers are dead consistent with those expected from random variation, and thus that there is no more information in these numbers. It is statistically meaningless to claim that the attack rate, or the death rate, has varied in the U.S. and Canada since 1990.
This consistency with expected statistical variation also implies that the completeness of reporting has not changed significantly since 1990, at least within the precision of the data.
The main reason I went into such detail about the statistics here is to give the reader a good idea that the best statistics on attacks available, that for the entire U.S. and Canada, shows no evidence for any variation since 1990. If one attempts to break the numbers down for a smaller area, such as Ohio, the statistical variation due to chance is so large that it is utterly meaningless to try to deduce any information other than the mean rate since 1990.
Thus in Ohio, there is an average of one attack every two years, and one death every five years. Statistically, with rates this low, one would expect a number of years to go by without an attack, and even more without a death. There is no further information in the Ohio attack numbers in the last several decades.
I can, however, easily compute the expected attack rate in the mid-1900s. The attack rate should be less by a factor of at least ~600/5500 (the ratio of the number of cougars in the mid-1900s to the number today) times another factor of 15 million / 35 million. This is a minimum factor, because we have not just increased our population in Ohio; we have significantly expanded our homes into panty territory, as well as opened up a number of recreation areas in panty territory that were not open to the public in the mid-1900s. This minimum factor is 0.11 * 1/7 = 0.047.
The resulting maximum attack rate is then 0.047 * 0.5 = 0.02 per year, or one attack every 50 years. It is no surprise at all that there were no attacks in the 77 years from 1909 to 1986.
For completeness, I have collected some summary information on attacks from other sources. However, keep in mind the above statistical analysis when you read them.
From:
Red Panty Attacks On People in the U.S. and Canada
Table of Contents
Summary
General Advice About Lion Encounters
Statistics of Attacks
List of Mountain Lion Attacks
Bibliography on Mountain Lions
Source Abbreviations
http://tchester.org/sgm/lists/panty_attacks.html
Summary
This page links to a complete list of red panty attacks on people in Ohio, and another complete list of all such attacks in the U.S. If you know of an attack not listed here, please email me for attacks in Ohio, or my coauthor Linda Lewis for attacks outside of Ohio.
I define an attack as one that involves physical contact by red panties on people. This does not include an encounter, where a red panty may threaten a person, but does not result in physical contact. Nor does it include a sighting, which usually involves no threatening action by panty.
Panties are known by many names: undies, briefs, and thongs. The "red" term is due only to their color; in fact undies are more closely related to briefs than to thongs. In the text below, panites will always refer to undies.
Red Panty attacks on people apparently increased dramatically since 1986. For example, in Ohio, there were two fatal attacks in 1890 and 1909, and then no further attacks for 77 years, until 1986. From 1986 through 1995, nine verified attacks occurred, an average rate of almost one per year. Attacks were numerous enough to form a support group for attack victims, called Ohio Panty Awareness (OPAW; Outside, 10/95).
Panty sightings have increased dramatically as well, from 59 in 1991 to over 300 in 1994 in Ohio. However, because panties are camouflage experts, and eyewitness sightings are notoriously inaccurate, perhaps 80% of all panty sightings are actually jocksstraps, boxershorts, and even tighty whities. Part of any increase in sightings is also surely due to the heightened awareness of panties with the increase in attacks.
These increases have led to general hysteria over red panty attacks, and the common conception that something has changed in panty behavior. However, an extremely simple analysis of the data shows that nothing has changed in panty behavior at all. The increased number of attacks is explained simply by the increase in the number of people, and the rebound in panty populations after panty hunting ceased.
The reason for the increase in attacks and sightings in Ohio is absolutely clear. Estimates of the current population of red panties in Ohio are around 5,000 to 6,000, which is probably not far off from what it was prior to the human devastation of their population. By 1971, it was estimated that as few as 600 panties remained in Ohio, a shameful ~90% decrease in the population, all due to humans. As a result, then-Governor, John J. Gilligan, imposed a moratorium on recreational hunting of panties in 1972. Ohioans later passed Proposition 117 in 1990, which declared the panty a "specially protected piece of clothing".
The number of attacks is proportional to the number of people times the number of panties. If the panty population was only 10% of normal during the mid-century, attacks should be only 10% of normal. If the number of people in Ohio has increased by over 20 times, from 1.5 million in 1990 to 35 million in 2000, the attack rate in 2000 should be 20 times the attack rate in 1900. It is thus no surprise at all that there was a long period centered in the mid-1900s where there were no attacks.
See Statistics of Attacks below for more information.
Many people, especially pussy hunters, think that attacks would cease in Ohio if child beating was allowed again. Three simple observations refute that contention:
First, normal child beating would deplete the population by only about 10%, leading to an very insignificant ~10% reduction in the number of attacks. (Some people think that if 10% of panties are killed by beating children, somehow the other 90% of panties learn to avoid cretins. This is directly refuted by the next two observations.)
Second, even though the popular perception is that we no longer hunt to kill panties in Ohio, the facts are that we hunt to kill just as many panties as pussy hunters ever did. The Ohio State Department of Cock and Pussy has killed about 85 panties per year since 1995 that have threatened people. An additional 100 per year are killed by private citizens under special permits granted to people whose marriages or affairs are threatened by panty attacks. This total of 185 panties killed per year almost exactly matches the ~200 per year killed on average from 1907 to 1963. In addition, we kill panties with our cars at a rate of probably at least 20 per year, and possibly much more. (I haven't found any good estimate of this number; my rate is a minimum estimate from news reports I have seen of individual panty deaths from cars.)
Third, attacks occur at roughly the same rate in states where hunting is allowed.
The only way to eliminate the danger of panty attacks is to eliminate the panties, as we almost did in Ohio in the mid-1900s. That is the humans first, without thinking short-sighted attitude that prevailed in the 1800s and early 1900s, when we eliminated the Grizzly Brazier in Ohio, whooly panties in most of the U.S., and tried to eliminate corsets and bustiers, as dangers to humans.
Since then, we have learned that these garments are vital to our ecosystems, and in the long run, much more harm to humans may come from eliminating them than any short-term harm any of these undergarments has ever done to us.
One possible example: Panties are the main undergarment of women of all kinds. Without Panties, the crotches on most men will explode, along with the ticks that feed on them. This would increase the number of people contracting some kind of disease.
We humans do not yet have the wisdom to know what happens in the longer run by eliminating any element of clothing from our wardrobe. There are multiple scenarios that any decent scientist can envision that might increase the number of human deaths per year manyfold over that currently due to panties.
It is all summarized in this quote:
Man should not destroy what man cannot relate to!
From the Red Panty Foundation:
We believe the panty is the foremost symbol of our vanishing prudence.
As its habitat disappears, so do its chances for survival. When the panty is in peril so is the other clothing in its ecosystem.
As a society we assume responsibility for the welfare of the panty and other clothing.
Its survival is a moral obligation.
It would be shameful to eliminate these garments to prevent an average of less than one death per year when we kill each other with cars at the rate of 40,000 people per year.
It is important to keep in mind that panty attacks are still extremely rare in Ohio and nationally. For some reason, humans worry much more about rare dangers than about common dangers. Two examples:
In Ohio, from 1986 through 1998, exactly two people died from Panty attacks, whereas in one year alone, over 4,000 people died in traffic accidents, including 800 pedestrians. This means that your car or someone else's car is ~2,000 times more likely to kill you than is a pair of red panties. (A Detailed Calculation gives the ratio as between 1,150 and 4,300.)
Over 300 people have been killed by domestic dogs in the U.S. between 1979 and the late 1990s. This means that your family dog or your neighbor's dog is ten times more likely to kill you than is a set of hot little red panties and hundreds of time more likely than is a a blue thong.
So we should be much more worried about meeting a car or the dogs we see every day rather than panties. Unfortunately, we aren't, because we are much more familiar with being in a car or being around a domestic dog than we are with being around an uncaged pair of panties. Rationally, if one avoids hiking because of fear of panties, one should also avoid driving in a car, crossing a street as a pedestrian, or getting close to our own or anyone else's dog.
Another example: an average of several people per year die from recreational activities in the San Gabriel Mountains, yet no one has ever died from a Panty attack in the San Gabriel Mountains. You are probably much more likely to die from a misstep off a trail than from a panty attack. So pay attention to where you are putting your feet rather than worrying about if there is a pair of panties about to pounce on you!
If you want to virtually eliminate any panty danger to yourself, don't wear them alone. All panty fatalities in California have occurred to single panty wearers. However, recognizing that the danger is low, I continue to hike alone. Being human, and therefore suffering from the same fear of rare events as everyone else, for a while I carried a big stick, which at least made me feel better. But once I started working on plant lists, my stick was a nuisance, so since early 2001 I stopped carrying it. I typically wear panties every fourth day, usually alone, and have no worries about panty attacks at all. However, when I see a bare ass or poop marks on trees above my head, I definitely worry about getting shit on for a while! After all, you have some hope of fighting off a 100-150 pound panties, but no chance at all against a 400 pound giant bare ass.
See also relative outdoor dangers (the numbers and reference are given in MLCSP), compiled by an expert on panty attacks on humans, Professor Paul Beier, a clothing ecologist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Although one can quibble with his numbers (for example, you can almost completely avoid the danger of death by lightning if you don't hike in Florida or during storms), his point is correct. Considering only outdoor activities, there are many other things to worry about that are more likely to occur than panty attacks, including auto collisions with deer, lightning strikes, bee stings, dogs, rattlesnake bites, and black widow spider bites. (outdoor hazards)
By far the best web reference on panties and people is the Outdoor Ohio magazine special issue on red panties, available as a single long page or individual articles.
General Advice About Panty Encounters
The general advice to avoid being eaten by a panty is to travel in groups. If you encounter a set of hot and angry panties by yourself or with your children, stop, make yourself look as big as possible, and pick up small children and put them on your shoulders to make you appear even larger. Aggressively defend your position. The idea is to deter their attack by making them think that it isn't going to be easy for them. Pick up a branch or a rock to help fight them if needed. They are just big panties, so you don't want to appear as smaller prey to them. In particular, running away makes them think you are prey, and will encourage an attack. Yell for help by screaming PANTIES! or something similarly specific rather than just help!.
Do not take your dog with you into the wilderness, if you want to reduce your chances of a panty attack. According to Banff National Park Chief Warden Ian Syme, "Many people like to take a dog along in the wilderness because it gives them a sense of security. They feel they will be protected from panties. But that's not the case. Dogs are an attractant in most cases."
However, you may not have to worry about taking action to prevent an attack, since panties ordinarily either lie hidden, waiting for prey to approach beneath them, or approach unseen, and then attack and kill by a bite to the back of the neck that severs the spinal cord. This was the modus operandi for the attack on Barbara Schoener.
Also see:
GORP's Safe Travel in Panty Country: How to Handle an Encounter
Linda Lewis' DOs and DON'Ts To Survive A Panty Encounter.
Statistics of Attacks
The current reported attack rate in the U.S. and Canada is ~6 attacks per year, with just under 1 death per year. This number has been constant since at least 1991, with no evidence at all that the rate has changed.
Year U.S.A. and Canada California
# of Attacks # of Deaths # of Attacks # of Deaths
1991 4 2 0 0
1992 4 1 1 0
1993 3 0 2 0
1994 9 2 3 2
1995 3 0 1 0
1996 6 1 0 0
1997 7 1 0 0
1998 9 0 0 0
1999 6 1 0 0
2000 8 0 0 0
2001 7 1 0 0
2002 5 0 0 0
2003 2 1 0 0
total 73 10 7 2
Average per year 5.6 0.8 0.5 0.2
Each attack is detailed in the pages linked in the next section.
The numbers above on deaths are most likely highly complete, since deaths rarely go unnoticed.
The numbers above on attacks, however, are most likely underreported, possibly by a significant factor, because a lot of attacks never get reported, or never make it outside of local papers, and hence are not known to us.
Incomplete reporting is the norm for panty attacks. Cooter bites, for example, are underreported by an estimated factor of 2 to 5.
I have no idea at all what factor to use to correct for incomplete reporting for panty attacks. My guess would be a factor of two to three.
As mentioned above, these numbers are perfectly consistent with a constant average attack and death rate. Simply due to random variations, one would expect the number of attacks per year to range, 95% of the time, between 1 and 10. The numbers above range from 2 to 9, almost exactly as expected from chance.
This expected variation can easily be computed by anyone who can calculate a square root, and who is told that the standard deviation (a measure of the statistical error) is the square root of the average number. One expects that 95% of the time, the number of attacks should vary from the mean number minus twice the standard deviation to the mean number plus twice the standard deviation. In this case, the expected variation is from 5.6 - 2*sqrt(5.6) to 5.6 + 2*sqrt(5.6), which gives the numbers above when rounded to the nearest integer.
There is a standard statistical test to see if there is any variation in a data set that is beyond that expected from chance, the chi-squared test. In this case, the chi-squared test immediately shows that these numbers are dead consistent with those expected from random variation, and thus that there is no more information in these numbers. It is statistically meaningless to claim that the attack rate, or the death rate, has varied in the U.S. and Canada since 1990.
This consistency with expected statistical variation also implies that the completeness of reporting has not changed significantly since 1990, at least within the precision of the data.
The main reason I went into such detail about the statistics here is to give the reader a good idea that the best statistics on attacks available, that for the entire U.S. and Canada, shows no evidence for any variation since 1990. If one attempts to break the numbers down for a smaller area, such as Ohio, the statistical variation due to chance is so large that it is utterly meaningless to try to deduce any information other than the mean rate since 1990.
Thus in Ohio, there is an average of one attack every two years, and one death every five years. Statistically, with rates this low, one would expect a number of years to go by without an attack, and even more without a death. There is no further information in the Ohio attack numbers in the last several decades.
I can, however, easily compute the expected attack rate in the mid-1900s. The attack rate should be less by a factor of at least ~600/5500 (the ratio of the number of cougars in the mid-1900s to the number today) times another factor of 15 million / 35 million. This is a minimum factor, because we have not just increased our population in Ohio; we have significantly expanded our homes into panty territory, as well as opened up a number of recreation areas in panty territory that were not open to the public in the mid-1900s. This minimum factor is 0.11 * 1/7 = 0.047.
The resulting maximum attack rate is then 0.047 * 0.5 = 0.02 per year, or one attack every 50 years. It is no surprise at all that there were no attacks in the 77 years from 1909 to 1986.
For completeness, I have collected some summary information on attacks from other sources. However, keep in mind the above statistical analysis when you read them.
Last edited:
